And y'all wonder why I despair, sometimes...

Vanitha Sankaran's WATERMARK set in 1320 in Narbonne, France, when church-controlled parchment made paper making a near-heresy, told by a young albino mute woman the literate daughter of a papermaker imprisoned when the inquisition finds her using paper to write troubadour poetry about courtly love, to Lucia Macro at Avon, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Literate albino mutes.

Literate albino mutes.

Well, they're terribly underrepresented in literature, and they have an important tale to tell. Like how the thriving papermaking industries of France were being harrassed in the 1300s and a teacher was found who was willing to take the disabled daughter of a mere craftsman as a student.

True. Everyone deserves a voice.

Honestly, the story sounds sort of interesting to me, even if the mute girl given a voice through poetry is a little heavy-handed. The albino aspect is probably a step too far.

The problem is, though, that the paper making industry was thriving in that time period, and France was one of the world centers. The church didn't control it, because there were too many civil and business uses for paper.

Tangentially: When I was working at Berkeley, one of the 13th C canon law manuscripts (I can't remember country of origin) had a Latin inscription from the scribe, that we loosely translated as: "Here end the Decretals (written) by the hands of Gertrude, who was accustomed to playing with nude people."

The scribe was very unusual in that she was female, and that she gave the church a zinger in mentioning exactly why she was being punished (made to copy the ms).

I don't know anything about that period of history, so.

Am I being too much of a hardass for wanting Inquisition to be capitalized? (Or to see Mel Brooks and a merry band of monks go dancing by?)

Honestly, the story sounds sort of interesting to me, even if the mute girl given a voice through poetry is a little heavy-handed. The albino aspect is probably a step too far.

I think that's the thing that bugs me, Amy-- honestly, when I started reading the blurb, I thought, "Wow, a period of history that's not been done to death," and then we got to albino mute girl writing troubadour poetry about courtly love and I just facepalmed. I actually think it would have been interesting for her to be albino, since during that period that would have been something looked upon with deep suspicion and have her find her refuge in the poetry, vs. the mute finding voice through the poetry. And both is just... too much.

(Or to see Mel Brooks and a merry band of monks go dancing by?)

"The Inquisition, what a show! The Inquisition, here we go ..."

And both is just... too much.

Yeah. I mean, I get making your protagonist an outsider, but come on.

What surprised me most was that Lucia Macro bought it. I didn't know she was acquiring outside of the romance program.

Or to have someone exclaim, "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"